


bela lugosi's dead

by orphan_account



Series: that's quite a lot of fahc aus [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, gavin's got a little bit of fae in him, jack and ryan do magic, trevor the revolutionary werewolf, vampire!geoff, were!michael & jeremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-02-03 10:41:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Oh my god," Michael says, almost in tears laughing. "Fuck yes, this- Geoff, oh man, Geoff listen I have a joke for you. I have a joke. So a vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar-" He waits expectantly.Geoff shuts his eyes and just surrenders. "And the punchline...""You are!" crows Michael, and laughs himself off his chair.





	1. meeting jeremy

Geoff is going to find out about this and he's going to murder them. Then Ryan is going to bring them back just so Geoff can murder them again. There are only a few spots in Los Santos he doesn't want them going alone, and they've ignored him. He should be mature about this, tell Geoff immediately. Gavin considers this option very carefully and seriously, then says  _fuck it_ and asks Lindsay to borrow the new freelancer she seems so taken with.  
  
He's young but he's smart enough to not give Gavin his real name, at least, and doesn't accept any gifts, not even a friendly bev. Quick, this one.  
  
"We're not supposed to have anything like this in Los Santos, Ja- a colleague of mine drove it all out."  
  
"We got a whole lot of it up the east coast," the kid says sympathetically. "They call them the dogfights, lots of high rollers betting on it. But I've done this before, I know what I'm doing."  
  
Since what he's doing seems to be about to wander out into the seediest alleys of Los Santos pretending he's newly turned and feral enough to be an attractive option to people who run cage-fights for sport with kidnapped shifters, Gavin thinks he's allowed to be a little doubtful if that's true. The lack of confidence may show on his face.  
  
"Hey," the kid says, hand gentle at Gavin's shoulder. "I'll find your friend and bring him back."  
  
Gavin nods wordlessly, then grabs his arms. He normally only does this for crew, but this kid is risking a whole lot just because Gavin asked him to.  
  
The sigils he scrawls against the kid's wrists do, admittedly, look slightly less arcane and powerful because he's done it in blue biro. "Strength," he says, shaking the right wrist slightly. He shakes the other. "Protection." They've always been his favourites, the first ones Jack ever taught him.  
  
The kid looks quite touched.  
  
"Thanks, pal." He says quietly.

  
*

  
So that was the Golden Boy. Jeremy is glad Lindsay warned him. One day he'll be able to pay her back for how much she's looked out for him.  
  
It doesn't take long to get himself caught, because as Jeremy suspected these bastards are fucking amateurs. They don't even drug him. Novices, honestly.  
  
Snarling with just enough frantic fear to convince them they have the upper hand, Jeremy struggles against the choke collar until it hurts and spends the entire time counting exactly how many he sees, whether they are armed, and how many steps between each door.  
  
This isn't his first rodeo.  
  
They shove him down and shut the cage because it's well on 5am already and the games will have wound down. He lies still with his eyes shut and maps everything he can from what he can hear.  
  
He rests the next day until evening starts to descend and he's pulled out to familiar chants and howls of approval, a wall of sound almost alive and alcohol and blood in the air. He barely has to pretend anymore, the wolf wants a fight. And for so long as it's useful, Jeremy will indulge it.  
  
He promised Gavin forty-eight hours, and he plans to deliver.  
  
The first one they send up against him tugs his heartstrings a bit, poor half-starved thing, but it's not Gavin's friend. Jeremy never shifts enough to draw claws, and knocks him out as clean and quick as he can. Number two comes out of the gate looking to kill, and Jeremy has to be a little rougher. The wolf wants blood but Jeremy manages to pull back to a broken leg.  
  
Three is a familiar face from the photo he was shown. He doesn't know Jeremy though, so he goes in, swinging like Jeremy did the first time, wanting to end it without doing too much damage. When he realises Jeremy is a match for him he lunges. Jeremy tackles them both to the ground, struggling to stay close enough to mutter in his ear without getting bitten.  
  
"You must be Michael," he says, and Michael jolts. "Hit me again, I'll stay down. All you need to do is make sure we get dragged out together." Jeremy smiles against Michael's neck, knowing he can feel it. "Gavin sent me."  
  
Jeremy has a lockpick sewn into his jacket, Michael manages to stick close, and for once the rest of it goes exactly to goddamn plan.

  
  
*

  
Geoff is hungry, so he treats himself for once and goes bar-hopping to find a pretty young thing. This was easier back when he drank.  
  
It's a human bar, not one of the dives the shadowed side of this city have made their own, so he isn't expecting the little wolf. He's up at the bar, charming the bartenders into giving him extra shots and surprisingly shameless about what he is, if you know the clues to look for. His hair is bright blue on top and he's blushed a little red from laughing and he is the nicest thing in the whole place.  
  
He spots Geoff, and tries to buy him a drink.  
  
Geoff talks in circles until the little wolf is tipsy and distracted enough that Geoff buys him a drink instead, and he rolls his eyes when he realises but accepts it graciously.  
  
Geoff ends up with his arms at the kid's waist and shoulders, standing behind him as they both survey the bar. "I count ten heartbeats at least, in this place," he says low, "that spike whenever you so much as look at them. Why me, then?"  
  
"You're the most dangerous thing in the room," the little wolf says, entirely too pleased about it.  
  
Geoff takes him home, breaking Rule One.  
  
"I heard it tastes better if I'm drunk, is that true? I mean I'll take one for the team at the expense of your liquor cabinet."  
  
Geoff laughs. "Depends what you drink," he says, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey with a date on it that makes the kid hesitate.  
  
"Maybe save that for a special occasion," he says quietly.  
  
"Yeah," Geoff agrees, opens it and pours him a double.  
  
The kid is all for pulling his clothes off and going for it right there in the living room, but Geoff takes it slow. He traces the scars layered across his chest and back, enough of them claw marks for there to be really only one explanation.  
  
"I thought we got that bullshit out of our town," Geoff says darkly. The kid blinks like he's got a secret, then shrugs.  
  
"Got 'em up east."  
  
Geoff goes slow, and has the little wolf under his hands for hours bringing him to the brink before he bites down, and the kid arches like he's never known anything like it.  
  
Geoff almost goes too far, but he's an old hand now. He can rein himself in. The kid is pale and unconscious by the time he's done but he'll be fine, his pulse is strong. He knew what Geoff was. Geoff tucks him in and kisses him gentle. He'll make the kid breakfast tomorrow and make sure he's steady on his feet before he goes.

 

*

  
"Job interview," Jack reminds him. Geoff groans.  
  
"Do we have to?" Michael says, petulant.  
  
Ryan yawns. "What's the name?"  
  
"Dooley," Jack says, then calls to the hall. "Jeremy, come on in."  
  
If Geoff had a heartbeat, it would have missed a beat or three. _You have got to be fucking kidding._ Jeremy looks at Geoff like a deer in the headlights. He hasn't even pulled his collar up enough to hide the bite, like a teenager showing off a hickey.  
  
"Hello, Jeremy," Gavin says frantically, lunging to shake his hand. "Very nice to meet you for the first time!"  
  
Ryan smirks at Gavin. "Points for effort if not for delivery."  
  
Michael is too busy looking back and forth at the panicked staring between Geoff and Jeremy with rising glee.  
  
"Geoff, is that the one- did you fuck the new guy before we even hired him?"  
  
"Geoffrey," Gavin shrieks at about the same moment, grabbing at Jeremy's neck, "did you try to _eat Jeremy?_ "  
  
"I want to die, except for real," Geoff tells Jack pleadingly.  
  
Ryan raises his hand as if to offer his services and Jack shoves it back down.  
  
Jeremy clears his throat. "Hi?"

"Oh my god," Michael says, almost in tears laughing. "Fuck yes, this- Geoff, oh man, Geoff listen I have a joke for you. I have a joke. So a vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar-" He waits expectantly.

Geoff shuts his eyes and just surrenders. "And the punchline..."

"You are!" crows Michael, and laughs himself off his chair.

 

  
*

  
  
Geoff is asleep on the couch across Jeremy's chest, and he only ever sleeps after feeding. Michael tries to walk past, tells himself this is Geoff and everything is _fine_ , but then he swears and goes back and just checks Jeremy is still breathing. He also wakes him and makes him drink an oversized glass of orange juice.  
  
"Thanks, Michael," Jeremy says warmly and sleepily, before hugging Geoff closer and drifting off again.  
  
Michael doesn't get it. He loves Geoff, but if the fucker put his teeth anywhere near Michael's neck he'd break Geoff's jaw.  
  
"Is there something wrong with Jeremy?"  
  
"Probably," Ryan says lazily. "Why ask me? Of the two of us you're better placed to tell."  
  
Maybe that's why it's bothering him so much. Jeremy is like Michael, or at least close enough, and for the first month Michael got on with Geoff fine but couldn't cope with being alone in a room with him. He didn't smell wrong, just like nothing at all.  
  
"You're an expert in blood and things that creep me the fuck out," he snaps.  
  
Ryan sits up a little, apparently sensing that Michael is actually worried.  
  
"When I work, I use human blood because it works best," he says, and yeah, straight in with the creepy. "Do you know whose works best of all?"  
  
"A very unlucky bastard?"  
  
"My own. Give and get back." Ryan settles back, shrugging. "I don't know a thing about his or your instincts, but I have a suspicion Geoff's little wolf is laying as much a claim to him as the reverse. Like how you always walk around covered in Gavin's scribbles."  
  
Talking to Ryan was a stupid idea. Letting Gavin draw his odd little signs on him isn't the same thing at all.  
  
He asks Jack instead.  
  
"Well he's not wrong," she says thoughtfully, "also, it can be a hell of a high."  
  
Maybe he should stop worrying. Jeremy seems fine later that evening when they escort Gavin to territory negotiations, stalking at Gavin's left as intently predatory as Michael is at his right. Just before they enter, and Gavin has to slip into a certain state of mind, quicksilver and sharp, he grabs both their hands.  
  
"I _like_ this," he confides, glancing between the two of them. "Strength," his fingers tighten briefly on Michael's wrist, "and protection," he taps at Jeremy's with a soft smile.

 


	2. the dead have their day

  
When Jeremy trips over another little token left outside his room for the third time in a week, he figures Gavin's people are a little bit like cats. Aloof and distant or clingily affectionate, depending on how the wind blows, and demonstrate that they've decided they like you by dropping off gifts at your door. Jeremy should probably count himself fortunate it's Aviators instead of a dead mouse. They're a far nicer pair than he's ever owned, and the exact pair he saw in a store a few days ago and probably glanced at too long before moving on past. He can afford it now, but remembers too clearly when he had to prioritise whether he ate that night or at all the next day.  
  
He's aware how quickly it could go back to that, if this probationary period doesn't work out. At least he presumes he's still on probation; no one has said otherwise. It's too expensive, he can't keep accepting them, can't owe this much. He can't give them back or regift them though, he knows that's against the rules.  
  
Time to get creative.  
  
He checks in with Jack first, not wanting to do anything that messes with Gavin's head. "Hey," he says quietly. She nods at him to enter, concentrating on whatever tiny cogs and small shards of glass are flying around her desk, making themselves into something. "May I ask you something?"  
  
"Go ahead," she says, looking to him. The shiny fragments keep moving.  
  
"If, uh, hypothetically-" he starts, realising that she might just laugh him out of the room. "I asked Gav for something fucking ridiculous, like the moon, or world peace. Would that... sorry, this is stupid."  
  
"He would spend a lot of time trying to work out how to get you to the moon," Jack says, smiling like Jeremy just solved a riddle correctly, "and it'd sate the urge enough that he'd stop with the clothes and shoes and cars."  
  
"Cars?" Jeremy says, slightly panicked.  
  
"Michael sometimes gets cars," Jack says placidly. "It's a thing."  
  
Sometime the next day, it's Gavin's turn so he asks for their McDonalds order. Jeremy gives his, then throws in a vacation to outer space, the 2001 presidency, and a bit more time travel just for good measure.  
  
"Oh, you bloody bastard," Gavin says, throwing himself at Jeremy.  
  
Jeremy catches him, and lets him punch ineffectively at his shoulder for a while. "Or your company," Jeremy adds, quiet. "That's kind of cool, when you'd like to as well."  
  
"Smooth motherfucker," Geoff says from the doorway, all smug and proud.

  
  
*  
  


Ryan does things with bone and blood, has deals running with a few different demons and plays them off against each other like it's a game, has the dead do almost anything he'd want them to. Jeremy keeps a respectful distance from the whole thing up until the day Ryan seeks him out looking almost frightened, something Jeremy never thought to or wanted to see on him.  
  
He hands Jeremy a piece of ribcage.  
  
"This was sold to me. As imported. Rare animal." He sounds a little wrecked.  
  
Jeremy takes a look and wants to make his answer not hurt but isn't sure how to do it. The splintering there, the stretch of unnaturally rapid growth doesn't leave much room for doubt. "They were half-shifted when they died," he tries, "it might have been an accident."  
  
"No," says Ryan, and he closes off entirely, cold and impenetrable.  
  
"I know where these men live," he says, "I know where their families are, where they fucking play house like nothing is wrong-"  
  
Jeremy risks it and grabs him into a half-hug. "Not like that," he says, quiet but sure. "We'll work something out but not that."  
  
"Why?" Ryan snarls. "This could have been you. This could have been Michael."  
  
"Nah," Jeremy says, "we're tougher to kill than most." He tucks Ryan's hair back where it's fallen across his face, always better at touch than words. "You'll be more creative, yeah?"  
  
Like a red flag to a bull, and Ryan nods. He will be.  


  
*

  
  
Los Santos has forgotten how it got its name, but Geoff hasn't.  
  
If you get enough drinks in her, Jack will laugh about it. "It doesn't mean I was a good person," she says, and only half of them know what she's talking about. "You don't need to be. Just be in the wrong fucking place at the wrong time, or pull a poetic type of dick move that makes a good story."  
  
And yet she looks over them like they are her own, with a force they'd all cede to.  
  
"You look about two centuries younger since the little wolf," she tells Geoff one night, out on the balcony taking in the view.  
  
Geoff knows it's true as much as he can't admit it. He'd stepped back to the numbing monotony of the cold for too long, lost the control over this place, the safety he owes these kids that came to him and trusted him. "I think the term 'backhand compliment' was invented for that kind of bullshit," he tells her.  
  
"So take charge again." Jack is as gentle as she always is when she's giving him an order he can't refuse.  
  
She touches him, and Geoff spent a long time working his way through all the symbols, convincing himself that he's more than what he was told and that two pieces of wood or metal stuck perpendicular don't mean shit to him. You want to quiz him on theology, he'll ace it and throw it back in your face. When Jack touches him, it sometimes still burns a bit. He doesn't mind.  
  
"It's your city," she says, "make it what you'd be proud of."  
  
Geoff has her in the skies, mostly, when they heist. She likes it that way. She can keep an eye on all of it from the helicopter or the plane, Gavin going in first and charming his way to distraction, Michael and Jeremy following shortly behind to slam themselves into anything that might be a threat to him. Alarms sounding and back-up called, and Geoff and Ryan walk in with all hell following after, a toin coss as to which one of them brings it. And she's in the skies, and she can change the odds a little if she closes her eyes and tries. She is the one they call for, howling for a getaway and far too proud of themselves.  
  
This is the city of saints, and they happen to have the last one standing looking over them.  


  
*

  
  
Ryan turns up dressed up in a tuxedo and looking like a million dollars, free of the usual make-up and fiddling with cufflinks. "I'm going out. I'd like something pretty on my arm," he says, slightly intently.  
  
"Okay," Jeremy says, and waits for the punchline, or the explanation. The best clothes he's got are the ones in the pile marked 'not currently bloodstained' and he's pretty sure he could only look like about two bucks fifty even if he tried. "Sorry, uh, would you like me to go find Gavin?"  
  
"I'm going out," Ryan says, with a certain exasperated purpose. And then Jeremy gets it. He kisses Geoff on the cheek, quick and apologetic.  
  
"Sorry! Gotta go be Ryan's, um, his spare?" He blushes and flees.  
  
He does his best, pulls on the nicer of his leather jackets, and holds on to Ryan's arm like he might belong. Ryan takes him downtown and to a familiar address, paying for both of them to go up to where the big money is being thrown around. Jeremy spends the entire time terrified someone will look at him and just know, know that he belongs down there in the sand scrambling to stay alive and not up here with a cocktail. Ryan keeps a hold on him the whole time. He makes a few bets, and with a particular brand of experience Jeremy whispers all the right hints for him to break even and not attract attention.  
  
"Where do they put them when they don't make it?" Ryan asks softly.  
  
"If they're smart, off-site." Jeremy leans against him and shrugs. "If they're stupid and lazy, basement."  
  
"Stupid and lazy seems like a safe bet," Ryan says absently.  
  
They pretend Ryan is too drunk to stand and Jeremy apologises profusely, pulling him downstairs and then taking some less than legitimate left turns to get to the basement stairs.  
  
There are a lot of bones. It isn't quite so bad as the more recent bodies, not yet decomposed. Ryan takes it in and then seems to settle himself. "Stay still," he says gently, pushing Jeremy to his knees and Jeremy shuts his eyes obediently.  
  
Whatever it is he does, it takes a while, and Jeremy smells smoke, and the faint sharpness of blood. Then he hears them move, and keeps his eyes shut on trust, as all of them move for the stairs. He stays still, not sure he's permitted to move until Ryan hauls him up, an arm on his waist. "They'll take their own," he says, slightly out of breath.  
  
"You did all that?" Jeremy asks, while the screams start upstairs, as those that died take back the cages and arenas.  
  
"I called them. Their anger holds them up." Ryan looks slightly confused, and pulls Jeremy closer. "They weren't as angry as I thought they would be."  
  
"We're mostly just scared," Jeremy says honestly, "or tired, by the end."  
  
Ryan interlaces their fingers and takes him out of there as soon as he can, turning him into Geoff's arms with a nod and a threat all in one. _He's good. Don't fuck this up._  
  
Geoff nods back. He really doesn't plan to.  
  
  



	3. don't look to the past

 

"How did you do it, the first time they got you?" Gavin asks, a couple too many drinks in.  
  
"Shut the fuck up, Gav."  
  
"It's okay," Jeremy says, tight and flinching enough despite himself to let it be known that it is no way okay.  
  
"Just... how did you first get out?"  
  
"How did you do it?"  
  
"Did you have, I mean, friends with you, or-"  
  
"No," Jeremy says, "no one." Sharp and fast enough that Geoff and Jack at least know for sure that he did, that he'll protect them still, against anyone and with anything that he's got.  
  
"Gavin, jesus fucking christ, shut the fuck up." Geoff says.

  
  
*

  
  
"He doesn't know what he is?"  
  
It's a hushed whisper, like they might be overheard. Gavin isn't being manipulative, exactly, but it's two days out to full moon and another week of Michael moping so he is doing what he would define as taking advantage of available resources. "He doesn't remember," Gavin sighs, not playing it up too much, but demonstrably sad about it. "And he won't let any of us close on the night."  
  
"Run with me," Jeremy says, the next day, and Michael blanches.  
  
"I'm not a wolf," he says. He doesn't know it for sure but he thinks he can't be, there's a companiable warmth to Jeremy and every other wolf he's ever met that he knows he doesn't have. "I'm not your pack."  
  
"Oh, fuck that," Jeremy says with a smile. "Play with me."  
  
"Phrasing," Jack says idly. They both give her the finger.  
  
They head out together, to the middle of nowhere, or as best as they can estimate it. Either by nature or by the necessity of circumstance Jeremy has learned better control, and as the moon rises he stays himself until the last minute even as Michael loses himself a bit to the animal. He, or it, maybe both stand over the small vulnerable thing in front of him and roar at it as it laughs joyfully and reaches out to stroke his fur. Abruptly he knows even though he isn't thinking linear anymore that if anyone came near and meant the little thing harm he'd tear their throats out.  
  
It turns with the night and then it's a little brother, smaller but strong and fast, a wolf that chases the moon the same as he does. They run, and it's a game, it's all a game. Jeremy cheats, the little shit, running down low through shortcuts Michael can't fit.  
  
When he wakes, a little groggy and entirely naked, Jeremy shoves some sweatpants at him. He's shirtless but clearly has been awake for a while, long enough to find the clothes they'd stashed and do Michael the favour of bringing him his.  
  
"I was-" Michael hesitates, unsure if he even wants to know. Jeremy sits, patient.  
  
"You were," he agrees, and waits calm for permission to keep going.  
  
"If it's a fucking rat or some shit I don't wanna know," Michael says, by way of assent.  
  
"Nah," Jeremy says, with all the pleasure of giving good news, reaching up to press his own forehead against Michael's. "Biggest motherfucker of a bear I ever saw."  
  
"Oh," Michael says, quiet. A bit pleased.  
  
Gavin, for some reason, is really smug for a whole week and no one knows why.  


  
*

  
  
Jeremy is less than eighteen and he's killed three people the last three nights because his body turns traitor every time; every time he resolves to stay still and let it end he gets scared and lashes out at the last minute, on some remnant of self-preservation. He wants to stop, he wants to go out quiet. They cage him with others for the first time and he learns their names, and keeps his head down. Trevor looks at him like he's dirt, which is fair, but Matt is too sweet for this and he's brought back in pain so Jeremy scrambles over and after begging permission he holds him close because he doesn't know how to do anything actually useful. Matt grabs back tight like Jeremy is his last hope.  
  
Trevor's expression softens, at that.  
  
They end up taking it in turns, the two of them, taunting everyone that comes for them enough that they take them every time and never take Matt. Late one night Jeremy reaches for Trevor. "If it's you and me," he says, and means it, "I won't even move. Just kill me quick."  
  
"Like fuck I will," Trevor says, because he's fierce enough to match Jeremy in every kind of way, and they maybe love each other just a little only on that.  
  
Jeremy gets paired with Matt. He makes a show for about three seconds before he grabs Matt's hands and puts them at his own throat. The whole crowd goes quiet. Matt whines helplessly, too gentle at heart for this, already resigned to not leaving the ring.  
  
"Fair trade," Jeremy says fondly. If Matt gets just one more day, it'd be worth it. He truly does believe that. Matt's eyes go wide and he's about to do something terrible, like drop to his knees, but then Trevor, ever the clever one, shuts down all the lights just like they planned.  
  
In the dark it's easier. They see better than the rest, in the dark.  
  
The three of them break out in dark and confusion, a whole lot of blood on his and Trevor's hands cutting a path to the door and they feel just fine about that. And that's how they get out the first time.

  
  
*

  
  
With age comes a lot of things, including responsibility, and Geoff has a hell of a lot of years on his shoulders. Ryan pretends he has the same, and tries to shoulder the same burden, but Geoff and Jack look at each other and they know he's young. Ambitious and brave but young enough, if you put it in perspective. They'll ease him in gentle.  
  
The lads are a whole other problem.  
  
"We'll outlive them," Geoff says, drunk and broken hearted, a few years ago when it actually hits him. "They'll get old and they'll die and we can't-"  
  
"We can't do a thing," Jack says, soft and sad. "But I bet you none of them would trade a moment they have for what we are."  
  
She's right. They're so much more alive. Maybe knowing it'll end makes you feel enough to make more of it.  
  
Gavin brightens every moment and Michael is always there in time for the joke, Jeremy at his side to play it out in full. They'll both be stupid all they need to be if it gets a laugh or a smile. They're vibrant and they're fleeting things but all the more precious for it. Their time is measured and they take every risk because they know it's true.  
  
"I'm not wasting a moment," Jack tells him.  
  
"Yeah, fuck that," Geoff says.  
  
With age comes a lot of things, including knowing what to value when you are given the gift of a chance to.

 


	4. i'm going to do what I've got to do

 

The way Jeremy tells it is that Matt and Trevor pulled him out of the dark, and that there's nothing more to the story.  
  
It's not quite like that. They tell Jeremy he's just an animal enough times as kid he really does believe it, and almost behaves like it. They try to make him behave like it. They certainly tie him up like one.  
  
"They're beasts," someone important says on television, "and we must almost remember that a brute animal will turn to violence if self-preservation is at stake, no matter how they play at humanity."  
  
He curls himself around Matt tentatively just to keep him warm because they don't give them blankets, and the first time he's put to fight against Trevor he doesn't know the other teenager's name yet but never tries to raise his hands anyway because this one is bright-eyed and maybe he'll make it out. Jeremy's a kid but he knows he's not anywhere near worth standing in the way of that.  
  
It's only a bad memory now, but there's something similar on television tonight, and Jeremy pretends he doesn't mind. None of them are fooled.  
  
"Don't worry," Gavin whispers, half in his lap and holding him close. Geoff and Ryan are stalking behind them like they want to tear the building down just to stop from destroying anything more. "We'll fix it. Don't you know? We're the things monsters are afraid of."  
  
Jeremy can believe it, and he's never felt safer.

  
  
*

  
  
It seems Jeremy is a bigger deal than they they bargained for, and the best and funniest part of that is he has no clue whatsoever that he is.

Trevor tells the story of their first night free a little different than Jeremy does, and they enjoy this version. He tells it the way that has Jeremy pulling them both into the street, the rich and famous dead behind, blood-soaked and relentless enough that no one tries to stop them. He's got Matt's fingers interlaced in his and Trevor's too and he never lets go of either of them. Trevor tells them that a few hundred of their kind watched the news that night, and then a few started to realise they were stronger than the metal holding them down.  
  
"Every revolution needs a spark," Trevor says to Geoff, soft and fond. "He's ours."  
  
"Let me help," Geoff offers. He's old enough that he has a few hundred years of money to throw around, and he'd play a more practical role in a second if they asked.  
  
"Nah," Trevor says, wise beyond his years. "We're doing this ourselves for a reason. Just don't stand in the way."  
  
"I'm not sure we'll be able to stop ourselves from doing something," Jack tells him, almost apologetic.  
  
"Okay," Trevor says with a grin. "But like I said, just don't stand in the way."

  
  
*

  
  
  
  
They are the things monsters are afraid of, and they prove it in the days to follow all across Los Santos.  
  
A lot of places fall apart as a lot of shifters make a run for it, and Michael takes pleasure in indulging himself in a show of force every now and again. It's good for the men in uniforms to know he's there, and what he could do to them. Gavin is a little subtler and much more cruel, letting men who think they have power bargain away all they have to him before smiling and calmly demanding more than they have to give.  
  
Ryan raises hell, quite literally, and Geoff embodies it, but Jack is as unforgiving as heaven enraged which is even more frightening.  
  
They are what monsters fear, and they're family.  
  
"I owed you better," Jack says one night. "I thought I drove it out. I'm sorry."  
  
Jeremy hugs her back. "They're the animals," he says, with a certain satisfaction and slightly amused. "It's okay. It'll always come back but you'll always be here to stop it." He's so young and he trusts her so much, she almost can't endure it.  
  
They do something as mundane enough as watch a movie together, and Geoff cries first. They are the things monsters are afraid of, but like hell they aren't stupid-soft family first.  
  
"Hello," Jeremy says, in the morning, a little dazed he's allowed in their bed. "May I move in? I won't be any trouble."  
  
"What the fuck," Jack says flatly. "You didn't tell him?"  
  
"Hey," Geoff says, "you were supposed to- oh, fuck. I fucked up."  
  
They're family and they mess it up sometimes but they love each other fierce, which Jeremy thinks is what probably counts.

 


	5. stars keep blazing even when the night is over

 

They're talking to a few newcomers, some of Geoff's kind and probably turned less than a year ago. Jittery, a bit out of control. Geoff explains to them that they can either get out of his city or do this the hard way. After all the years Jeremy spent chained up so he could be used as an amusement in a blood sport, either waiting for or occasionally hoping to die, it's surprising that it happens now when he thought he was safe. But there's a silver lining to it; he gets to choose a good reason to go and he's close to family when he does.

He chooses it because one of the idiots they're talking to gets trigger-happy, and aims at Jack, so it's either watch her get hit or put himself between her and harm, which is no choice at all.

She shoots the guy that did it and calls out for him sounding agonised enough that she could have been the one shot. His last thought is to hope she doesn't blame herself at all, because this really was his decision.

 

  
*

  
  
Ryan tries everything he knows, cutting at his own arms and bleeding until he staggers a bit and Jack steps in, eyes still tight with guilt but voice firm. "Enough." Geoff nods in agreement, mournful.

"I don't know why I can't do it," Ryan says, frustrated. "I've done it before-"

"We know," Geoff says, forgiving. "We know you tried."

Ryan will find the reason a bit later, in a book. It isn't a book about necromancy, it's in a novel by Camus. _No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession._

They bury him and hold a funeral, something expensive but dignified. Gavin and Michael disappear and don't talk to anyone for days.

They bury him in a tasteful and expensive coffin. It's a nice thought, but it means when he comes back he has to dig his way out of a couple of feet of dirt to get back to them.

He wakes in a wooden box underground with dirt heavy above and not much air left. He gets maybe halfway out and suffocates, then an hour or so later comes back. When Ryan called, he did it loud. Jeremy gets out on the second attempt, clawing at the ground fierce enough to bloody his hands in the effort. He emerges like that, and covered in dirt, and immediately drenched as well because it's raining.

He walks all the way to the penthouse and arrives like the spectre he isn't, and presses the doorbell.

"Hi," he says quietly when the door opens.

Instead of yelling, or shooting, both of which would have been understandable as far as he's concerned, they fall over each other trying to be the one who gets to hold him first and pull him into the bath.

He relaxes into hot water and grabs whoever's hands are closest. His own hands are a little blood-stained still, nails torn from dragging himself out. Ryan holds them carefully.

"I'm so sorry," he says.

"Don't be, I'm okay," Jeremy says, although it's kind of a lie. Everything since he came back is too bright, too loud, too hard, hurts. But they didn't know so they shouldn't apologise for it.

"What the fuck happened-" Geoff asks, sounding wrecked.

"I died for a bit," Jeremy tells all of them. "But then you called."

  
*

  
  
At some point, while he's gone, there is a game of chess. It probably has less to do with the mysteries of the afterlife and more to do with the fact that he saw the Seventh Seal on late-night tv a few days before he died, and his subconscious is plagiarising Ingmar Bergman.

Death is tall, but if you asked Jeremy later to describe anything about him or possibly her later, he couldn't give you a single detail. They've got a full set of chess pieces, but Jeremy just has a set of miniatures, every one of them someone he knows.

"Pick the pawn."

Jeremy moves the small figure of himself over without hesitation.

They play, and he places Michael and Gavin as his knights, Trevor and Matt as rooks. Ryan is a bishop, as is Lindsay, Jack the Queen and Geoff the King. He plays defensively, unwilling to give up any of the pieces, and prepared to just declare surrender if he's put in a position where that is inevitable. If there aren't any stakes here then it doesn't matter, and if there are he'd rather lose than lose any of them.

It doesn't come to that, because a pawn makes it to the back of the board and is promoted, and next turn he slides it sideways for a checkmate.

Death nods at him companiably, and taps a finger. Seems like Jeremy might have won something. "Your friend has been asking endlessly for you, it's getting tiresome." They must mean Ryan. He mustn't have stopped trying. "Do you want to go?"

"Doesn't matter," Jeremy says, "when they call I fucking answer."

So that's that.

 

  
*

 

  
News gets out fast and at first they're defensive about it, but Jeremy assures them he doesn't care. It can be fun, sometimes. Next time one of Geoff's kind turns up all jittery, he boasts that he died once, which is technically true but Geoff says you hardly notice, and snarls that he's not scared of it.

"Well, no, it was pretty okay, right Li'l J?" Gavin says.

"It was when I was there," Jeremy says, smiling with teeth. "But then I got bored."

The guy is sufficiently intimidated to get the hell out of their town.

It's even better when it can be a comfort. The kid who brings them pizza, of all people, seems to have heard a rumour. He holds the fifty-dollar tip tentatively, shaking a little, and says his mother is the kind of sick you don't get better from. "Is it bad?" he asks, trying not to cry and failing.

Jeremy reaches out and pulls him to a hug.

"Nah," he says, "It's forgiving. I knew right here-" he puts his palm on the boy's chest right over his heart, "-that everyone I love was safe. And it was warm. Might not be exactly that for everyone, but it was for me."

He tips extra and goes back to them, his family, sitting around watching a movie and eating pizza. They never need to know that there was a week or so, when he just came back, that he wished they had let him rest. But he knows now there's respite, if he stays good enough to have earned it. And even if he doesn't, he has come to realise he'd trade it away for just a little bit more time with them.

"What are you thinking about, Li'l J?" Michael asks, handing him a drink.

"Nothing important," Jeremy says.

Ryan, who is leaning back reading Camus' _Rebellion and Art_ , sees a line and starts swearing loudly, mostly at himself.

He looks straight at Jeremy.

"Thank you for coming back," he says.

Jeremy smiles fond. "Always," he says. "Anytime you call."

 


	6. the curse stops here

 

Lindsay's got a soft spot for an underdog, and she'll laugh about that turn of phrase a whole lot later. Right now she has a headache. For most people the thread of their life is uninteresting or ordered enough that you just have to settle in and work through a lot to get to the important bits, but since she's been contracted by this lot she's been having the opposite kind of problem.

Some people like to use cards to tell fortunes; ones they make themselves or gold-leaf with age and pedigree, bought at a silent auction. Personally, Lindsay has always had a fondness for a thrift-store jigsaw puzzle.

"Sorry," the kid who knocked at her door says, "you're busy. I'll wait outside." He's got something to deliver and asks if there's any work for a couple days to help pay his way back.

It's all paper and cardboard anyway, Lindsay thinks after she sends him on his way with a number written on a post-it, and puts down a piece of blue corner that fits perfectly and that she doesn't remember picking up.

"Huh," she says to the empty room about a minute later, when she realises.

 

  
*

 

   
Trevor is coming to town. Jeremy rereads the message to that jolt of feeling that has never quite faded when it came to Trevor; overwhelmingly fond, a little more grounded than a moment ago, and just a bit nervous. He figures there aren't many shifters in the country that don't know Trevor's name by now and they'll all want to meet him, so he messages back offering to pick Trevor up and take him wherever he needs to go.

Outside the airport Trevor laughs at the paint job on his car, feigning shielding his eyes from it, then hugs Jeremy tight. The conversation comes easy, like they've barely spent time apart.

"You want to take people out, Gav can hook you up. No reservation needed." Jeremy tells him, making a few recommendations while the traffic moves at a crawl. "Anything important bringing you over?"

"No you don't," Trevor says warningly, "I am saying it out loud just the once. I was born with maybe two genuine apologies in me tops, and I'm using them sparingly."

Jeremy blinks, then frowns. The idea of Trevor having trouble of the sort he'd back down from sits wrong in all sorts of ways, especially if it's here. Here is where his family doesn't have to apologise for being, ever again. He tells Trevor so.

"Pull over," Trevor says, and has the oddest expression on his face when Jeremy slams the brakes and brings them to a stop at the side of the road, tilting in his seat to give Trevor his full attention.

"Did they not tell y- Jeremy, I was sent the date of your _fucking funeral_. How well do you think I took that?"

 

  
*

 

  
When exhausting himself picking fights with strangers doesn't work, Michael lies on his bed staring at Jeremy's stupid cowboy hat until he can't anymore and tells Gavin he needs to get away. It's something Gavin can provide, in ways mere distance never could; he climbs onto the bed next to Michael and if the others weren't too wound up in their own grief and thought to check on the two of them it would look like they were just sleeping.

His hand in Gavin's is both his right of entry and his only way out, so he always holds tight. Whenever he has visited the other place before he's had a vague sense of the risk, that he might dance until he's bleeding and never notice, or misplace ten years chasing a sensation he can't put his finger on. But that knowledge like everything else always came to him like he was looking through smoked glass, rose-tinted and softly shimmering. This time is different, there are splintering, painful cracks and all of it is coming from Gavin. Gavin, who he thinks is even more lost than he is.

Sometimes Gavin tries to explain to people whose faces, for Michael, are unfocused. _Mine, ours, our thing,_ he says with words and gestures, showing the crumpled hat that back in their room in the penthouse a motionless Michael is still gripping tight to. _Gone for no reason, and no one can explain to me why._

They are as old as they are beautiful, and as far as Michael is concerned absolute fucking bastards every one of them, but they are Gavin's kin so in their own way they do try. They don't understand why it doesn't fix everything when they pluck some poor confused girl from a bus in Chicago who happens to share Jeremy's birthday and is a wolf under the moon as well.

"Fuck this, time to go home," Michael tells Gavin. "Let's put her back then go home. I hate it too, but we can't run away forever."

 

 

*

 

  
The parts of Geoff still working are the parts that he's given away willingly, to Michael and Gavin, to Ryan, to Jack. Enough of him, apparently, to hold up a facade of composure for the burial itself. He owes them that. But he's regressing and he knows it, to the bare bones of the creature inside. At the beginning it had been allowed so much closer to the surface, and he'd walked the earth with blood at his mouth while they parted in front of him like the Red Sea because they knew what he was. He can't remember why he ever stopped. He wants to tear flesh away just to remember. He's wronged on all sides by everyone here and he needs to hurt someone for it, for speaking and for breathing and for not being who he wants them to be.

Something akin to that anger is looking back at him during the ceremony in one particular person's eyes, so when it's done Geoff loiters in the carpark and gets the fight he's looking for.

It's not full moon, but it doesn't need to be. Geoff's got cruel words ready to start something, but he doesn't need those either. Whatever shape it is in the wolf is still itself, teeth and sinew and wounded fury, the head of a pack who has lost one of his own. The creature inside Geoff knows this. The creature inside Geoff is in its element, and doesn't care which one of them has the upper hand as long as blood is flowing.

Maybe it ends because they both land enough hits to lose count of bones broken. Maybe it ends because they make the mistake of meeting each others eyes and he realises that as much as he came here to use someone to hurt himself, the wolf did too. Maybe it doesn't matter why it ends.

Neither says a word, but when Geoff drags himself away to lick his wounds and find new ways it is all his fault he knows that Trevor is doing the exact same thing.

 

 

*

 

   
As a child Ryan isn't religious, and he never will be. He is precocious, though, so whenever he has to explain the fascination he has with old books in illuminated Aramaic or why he'll bypass his grandmother's rosary but can't get enough of the cards she collects, each one a different saint, he tells people it's a matter of aesthetic appreciation. He always comes back to the same one, one of the oldest, probably done very delicately in its day but now unreadably blurred by generations of fingers tracing across it looking for hope or for mercy. He likes the eyes, though, and the twist of flame-coloured hair. She doesn't have a name or a story so he can make his own.

As an adult Ryan knows there isn't such a thing as mercy and there can't possibly be any kind of higher plan, because this insignificant thing chained in front of him was allowed to take Jeremy from them. Vindication is very hollow.

"You said you would stop." Jack says. He had been too focused to hear her enter.

"I lied," he tells her.

It's strange to think this thing is the same breed as Geoff, human flesh stretched across something entirely different, primeval and so hungry it would gnaw itself to nothing in isolation. They're tough, though. He'll give them that. Ryan is running through every option, methodical, and while favours are best asked with his knife against his own skin he has moved on to demands, which require a show of force. There's a lot he can do to this one before it stops moving.

At the entry of someone else it tries to speak through its ruined jaw, and less choked on clotting blood the words might have been _help me_.

There isn't even a flicker of acknowledgement on Jack's face, and she puts a hand on Ryan's shoulder instead, tucking her hair behind her ear. As a child he had thought the depiction on that card to be flattery, but he knows now it hardly does her justice at all. And for all their differences he was drawn to it for a reason; neither of them even know how to back down.

"Good," Jack says. "Take a moment, we'll do the next one together."

They don't know yet that they don't need to. He's wedged a door open already, and in less than seven hours from now they're going to hear Jeremy knocking on theirs.

 

  
  
*

 

  
Back when Jeremy first comes to Los Santos he's got a return flight picked out and he arrives with a few changes of clothes in a backpack, a thank-you gift from Trevor to deliver to Lindsay and no intention to stay. Two weeks later he has the Golden Boy's number but not his name, a few yellowing bruises from a new friend and last night's bite at his neck. He orders an oversized coffee and sits down, fiddling with his phone and trying to work out how to say it.

Matt answers and they talk comfortably about nothing for a while until Trevor can join them. That's one of the the things they relearned how to do together, as they poked at all the worst scars and tried to remember how to want things instead of just surviving them. Matt wants quiet. Trevor wants to change the world. Jeremy isn't sure, so he's seeing what's out there.

Trevor joins the call and it turns out it's not so hard to work out how to say it.

"I'm going to stay a bit longer," Jeremy says.

"That's good," Matt says, and Jeremy can tell that he doesn't like the distance, doesn't like how everyone knows this city is dangerous, but that he means it anyway. Matt is complicated like that.

"Found your thing?" Trevor asks quietly, for once sounding as young as he actually is.

"No idea," Jeremy says, "Hey - this is dumb, but have you ever felt like you knew a person before you actually met them?"

There is a short and very pointed silence. "Don't explain," Matt tells Trevor in a stage-whisper, with all the amusement of someone who hadn't been touched without it hurting for years but fell asleep tucked close while Jeremy was still quietly introducing himself. "He'll get there on his own in a minute."

Trevor hides his laughter better. "Take your time, J," he says, "Really. If you have found it, we can put up with occasionally visiting Los Santos."

 

  
*

 

   
They are all gathering in the kitchen when Jeremy gets back from picking up his friend, and Gavin waits until he sits on a chair to wander over and promptly sit on him.

"Hi," Jeremy says, blinking and shifting so Gavin can rest less precariously in his lap, laying his arm with the wrist upright along the table on autopilot. Gavin flashes him a grin and pulls a pen out of his pocket.

"-is a little more complicated than that," Ryan is saying, as he and Michael carry their argument from the living room to join them.

"Please do explain it to me," Michael says with a shit-eating grin and obviously enjoying himself, "with small words and visual aids."

"Where's Geoff?" Jack asks, ignoring them while fixing what looks like toasted cheese.

"Having the world's most awkward conversation," Jeremy says cryptically, and as if on queue Geoff enters, shooting Jeremy a small wry smile as he does. Gavin can feel Jeremy relax just a little.

"Do we get a play by play?" Michael asks immediately. Geoff groans.

Jeremy, who has just noticed what Gavin is drawing over the veins at his wrist, squints a little at the small outline of a puzzle piece. "What's that?"

"Nothing," Gavin lies innocently. Jeremy isn't the only one who can be cryptic. "Lindsay gave me an idea."

"Alright," Jack interrupts triumphantly, putting two plates on the table. "So. What are we doing, Geoff?"

 

 


End file.
